Olympic equestrian contenders ran well at Barbury International Horse trials on Saturday in the last event before going into quarantine ahead of the Tokyo games.

Marlborough-based New Zealand rider Andrew Nicholson claimed his crown for another year at the four star level on Swallow Springs - making it his sixth win at Barbury.

A six-time Olympian, he was a silver medallist in the team event in Barcelona 1992, and won bronze in Atlanta 1996 and London 2012 with the New Zealand team.

British hopeful Tom McEwen and Marlborough-based New Zealand Olympians Tim and Jonelle Price were also competing.

Groom Kerryn Edmans explained: "They have just run their last competition and we will take them into quarantine on Saturday.

"We have eight horses between Tim and Jonelle and we fly to Tokyo on the 19th. We drive the horses out to Liege and they fly from there. then Hopefully we will have a successful couple of weeks in Tokyo."

Organisers Musketeer Event Management took over at Barbury three years ago. Barbury was the first event to run last year after the Covid restrictions were lifted and the weekend was the first with public allowed in.

Event organiser Jenny Meiklejohn said: "We have had a fantastic gate - capped at a thousand but close to that today. It is great to have the public back for the riders too. We have had really good entries.

"Across the three days we have had just over 800 competitors in the eventing classes and on top of that showing classes and Horse of the Year Show qualifiers. The Novice Masters which is for the more grass roots level has also kicked off well. We have also had some fantastic weather conditions so the going out there has been good. It can be hard ground but we have beautiful green fields."

In one of the biggest classes of 60 entries, the three star section winner was Alexandra Farrar-fry and Grey Finnsky with a score of 32.1.

Also competing in the 3 star was Marlborough-based crowd favourite Roo Fox. She came 15th on her mare Kopi Luwak and had spectators cheering her on after she shouted a loud "whoop whoop" as they soared over fence 10.

"It was a fantastic event and very exciting to be back riding here. My horse was amazing. They had to put the four star on today for the Olympic guys to get into quarantine on time, so its always good to see those guys and great to see some of those incredible horses here too."